While the United States and Iran heatedly battle over nuclear disarmament on the world stage, they joined forces last week before the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals......At oral argument, the 7th Circuit panel seemed to favor the arguments of the United States, Iran and the institutions, questioning the lower court's authority to disregard the artifacts' apparent statutory immunity. The artifacts "enjoy presumptive immunity" under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, said Judge Diane Sykes. "It can hardly be interpreted otherwise -- that's what it says.

When we began to learn about the legal emergency that puts the Persepolis Fortification Archive in peril, a colleague couldn’t resist quoting Samuel Johnson’s old saw: “The prospect of hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully.” The prospects of the Archive are still perilous, and the Persepolis Fortification Archive (PFA) Project’s attention is still concentrated wonderfully on its emergency priorities: to make thorough records of the Archive and to distribute the records widely, freely, and continuously.

The PFA Project’s collaboration with the West Semitic Research Project (WSRP) at the University of Southern California captures two sets of very high-resolution images of Persepolis Fortification tablets and fragments. One set is made with high-resolution BetterLight scanning backs and with polarized and filtered lighting (fig. 1); another set is made with polynomial texture mapping (PTM) technology and software that allows a viewer to manipulate the angle, intensity, and focus of the apparent lighting. A two-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation supporting this work came to an end, but a second two-year Mellon grant keeps the work going, expands it, and accelerates it by adding another, larger PTM dome (fig. 2). Clinton Moyer (Ph.D. 2009, Cornell), Joseph Lam (Ph.D. candidate, NELC), Miller Prosser (Ph.D. candidate, NELC), and John Burnight (Ph.D. candidate, NELC) are now making these images.

By mid-2009, this phase of the project has made images of about 660 monolingual Aramaic Fortification tablets, about 900 uninscribed, sealed Fortification tablets, and about 200 Elamite Fortification tablets. Now that almost all the Aramaic tablets are captured, the next targets are Aramaic epigraphs on Elamite cuneiform tablets (figs. 3 and 6), more uninscribed, sealed tablets, and selected Elamite cuneiform tablets.

During 2008–2009, the crew capturing and editing conventional digital images of Elamite Fortification tablets included undergraduates Trevor Crowell, Fay Kelly, and Madison Krieger (all Classics), graduate students Lori Calabria, Paul Gauthier, Megaera Lorenz, Elise MacArthur, Tytus Mikolajczak (all NELC), and Glenn Garabrant and Gregory Hebda, often working five at a time (fig. 4). This phase of the project has also accelerated since Calabria partially automated the editorial process. As of mid-2009, digital photography of the more than 2,500 PF-NN tablets (that is, Elamite documents that the late Richard T. Hallock edited in preliminary form, but did not publish) is nearly complete, photographs of about 425 new Elamite Fortification tablets (Elamite documents that I have edited in preliminary form) is underway, and photography of the approximately 2,000 Elamite tablets that Hallock published in Persepolis Fortification Tablets (OIP 92 [1969]) will soon resume.

We are providing the photographs of the Elamite tablets to our collaborators at the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) at the University of California, Los Angeles, to supplement the fast flat-bed scans made for CDLI’s online presentation, and the revised transliterations of the texts being completed by graduate students Andrew Dix, Seunghee Yie (both NELC), and Wayne Munsch (Divinity). (See http://cdli.ucla.edu/ ; click on “CDLI Search” and enter “OIP 092” in the form under “Primary Publication.”) Edited images of all categories of Persepolis Fortification documents are being copied to a server at the Collège de France for release on Achemenet and its companion site, the Musée Achéménide.

Images, editions, and cataloging information all flow into the On-Line Cultural Heritage Research Evironment (OCHRE), where PFA Project manager Dennis Campbell (Ph.D., NELC) coordinates, connects, and smoothes the data compiled by PFA Project editors, and prepares it for public release. Campbell and Internet Data Specialist Sandra Schloen have added many refinements to the PFA interface on OCHRE. Graduate students Seunghee Yie and Wayne Munsch are tagging and linking photographs to transliterations and the transliterations to the glossary and parser. As of mid-2009, OCHRE users can view about 750 Persepolis Fortification documents: about 500 Elamite Persepolis Fortification tablets, with interlinked transliterations, translations, notes, seal information, Elamite-English glossary, topical English-Elamite glossary, morphological parsing, and conventional digital images; about 30 Aramaic tablets, with interlinked transliterations, translations and notes, seal information, glossary, scans of the late Raymond Bowman’s draft copies and editions, and selected high-resolution BetterLight scans, and live screen-resolution PTM images; a sample of 110 uninscribed, sealed Fortification tablets with interlinked seal catalog information, seal drawings, and live screenresolution PTM images (fig. 5).

InscriptiFact, the online application of the WSRP, makes the PFA Project’s high-resolution images public with a very robust and user-friendly interface that allows viewers to manipulate, compare, and download them. As of mid-2009, InscriptiFact users can view almost 9,000 images of about 370 Persepolis Fortification documents (mostly Aramaic and uninscribed tablets and fragments). WSRP has developed an elegant stand-alone viewer for PTM images that can be run as a Java application on PC or Macintosh computers, currently available to PFA Project staff and soon to be generally available (fig. 6). WSRP is testing an online version of this viewer to be incorporated into the InscriptiFact application. The capabilities, speed, design, ease of use, and platform independence of these viewers are a great advance over the previously available DOS-based viewer, allowing users to see and manipulate PTM imagery at a choice of resolutions, and to make side-by-side comparisons with high-resolution flat scans.

Figure 4. Working at two photography stations, two photo editing stations, and one station cataloging scans, all in a single Oriental Institute office, from left, Tytus Mikolajczak, Lise Truex, Glen Garabrant, Trevor Crowell, Lori Calabria. Background, right: storage boxes of still unprocessed Persepolis Fortification tablets

Figure 5. OCHRE views of Persepolis Fortification tablets. Top: Elamite document, showing transliteration, translation, seal information, glossary look-up, and another tablet opened from a reference in the glossary look-up, also with transliteration, translation, and tagged photograph, and highlighting the signs of the word found in the glossary. Bottom: Aramaic document with two texts, one incised and the other in ink, showing transliteration, translation, seal information, autographed copy by Raymond A. Bowman, BetterLight image (with orange-filtered lighing) and live PTM image

During three extended visits to the Oriental Institute in the past year, PFA Project editor Wouter Henkelman (Amsterdam and Paris) has prepared collated, revised, and annotated editions and translations of about 1,000 Elamite PF-NN documents. These are being brought online category by category in OCHRE, fully glossed and parsed, along with linked and tagged images. Revised editions of comparable previously published Elamite Fortification documents and preliminary editions of comparable newly recorded Elamite Fortification texts will accompany these releases.

During nine trips to the Oriental Institute in the past year, PFA Project editor Mark Garrison (Trinity University, San Antonio) has verified and revised identifications of seal impressions on about 850 of these PF-NN documents. He has set up an OCHRE-based catalog of about 1,150 seals identified from impressions on published Elamite Fortification tablets, incorporating collated drawings of those that he and Margaret Root have published in the first volume of their magisterial work on Persepolis Fortification tablet seals (Images of Heroic Encounter [OIP 117]) and drawings of those to be published in succeeding volumes. He has added approximately 225 more distinct seals from impressions on new Elamite tablets and about 200 more distinct seals from impressions on uninscribed Fortification tablets, making working drawings of about 100 of them. Sabrina Maras (Ph.D., Berkeley), supported by a Levy Foundation postdoctoral fellowship, now works with Garrison on seals on the uninscribed tablets. Garrison has systematically surveyed almost 30 percent of the storage boxes of previously unedited Fortification tablets and fragments, selecting, boxing, and labeling uninscribed tablets for high-quality imaging, cataloging, and study, building a sample that already amounts to about 1,400 items as of mid-2009.

Figure 6. WSRP’s stand-alone PTM viewer, showing obverse and reverse of a previously unedited Elamite Fortification tablet (the text is a summary accounting of grain stored and disbursed at one of the sub-stations around Persepolis during three years), with seal impression and Aramaic epigraph on the reverse

During four trips to the Oriental Institute in the past year, PFA Project editor Annalisa Azzoni (Vanderbilt University, Nashville), after reviewing the approximately 680 monolingual Aramaic Fortification tablets and most of the about 180 Aramaic epigraphs on Elamite Fortification tablets, is populating OCHRE databases with cataloging and epigraphic information, and preparing advanced editions for release on OCHRE. PFA Project editor Elspeth Dusinberre (University of Colorado, Boulder) has processed more than 4,000 conventional digital images of the seals on the Aramaic tablets, uploaded them to the Project’s server to be added to OCHRE displays of the tablets, and is populating a descriptive and analytical catalog of about 500 distinct seals on these tablets that she and Garrison set up on OCHRE.

I have suspended detailed cataloging of the boxes of unedited Fortification tablets in favor of selecting the best-preserved or most promising individual tablets and fragments for conservation and recording. By mid-2009, I have added preliminary editions of about 425 new Elamite texts to OCHRE. Project conservators Monica Hudak and Jeanne Mandel have cleaned and stabilized about 650 Fortification tablets, about 325 of them during the last year. The speed and results of their painstaking work improved markedly after the Compact Phoenix laser cleaning system (known to PFA Project staff as the “Death Ray”) came on line in November 2008 (see Oriental Institute News & Notes, Winter 2008) (fig. 7).

Some Project work slowed or stopped in July/August 2008 while third-floor offices of the Oriental Institute received badly needed upgrades in electrical wiring and data connections. The hiatus provided an occasion for Wouter Henkelman, Mark Garrison, and student workers to put all the tablets that have been published and all those that are in process into new boxes and to file them in new storage cabinets, and an occasion for me to consolidate storage of the boxes of unprocessed tablets and fragments and to reorganize and enlarge Project work space in my
office (fig. 4).

During the reorganization of tablet storage, we moved most of Richard Hallock’s manuscripts, notes, and files on Persepolis materials to Humanities Division Research Computing to be scanned and made available to off-site project staff. Volunteer Greg Hebda and graduate student Lise Truex (NELC), working with Lec Maj at Humanities Computing, began to scan and catalog photographic negatives and prints of Persepolis Fortification tablets made in 1940 –41 under a grant from Works Progress Administration (WPA). We expect to display these pictures eventually online, alongside modern digital images of the same tablets and fragments.

When floods of data produced by the various parts of the PFA Project overwhelmed the hospitable resources of Humanities Division Computing, the Oriental Institute acquired a dedicated server for the Project, still maintained and managed by Lec Maj and his colleagues at Humanities Computing. In addition to holding raw data in process, finished files, working databases, scanned documents, and online tools — sixteen terabytes of material in live storage so far — the server shares data with collaborating projects elsewhere. Information capture still outstrips information processing, and many Project participants rely on direct access to fresh raw data, so even the current 22.5 terabyte capacity of this server will be a tight fit for some time ahead.

Despite stressful economic times, supporters of the PFA Project have continued to step up to meet the emergency. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded a second two-year grant, larger than the first, to support expanded high-resolution imaging work. An award from the Iran Heritage Foundation of London made it possible to set up a computer for in-house post-processing of the PTM image sets. The generous response to a fund-raiser in Los Angeles, organized by the Farhang Foundation (Iranian-American Heritage Foundation of Southern California), made possible an award that supports conservation of Persepolis tablets.

We try to convey to wider audiences the unique importance of the PFA and to describe the accomplishments and aspirations of the PFA Project. I discussed the Archive and the Project in lectures at the University of Vienna, Harvard, Tufts, Yale, and New York University, in presentations to the Visiting Committee of the Oriental Institute and to the docents and volunteers of the Oriental Institute Museum, and in remarks at fund-raisers for the National Iranian-American Council in Washington and New York. Oriental Institute Director Gil Stein and I described the Archive, the Project, and the emergency in which we operate at a panel discussion in Chicago organized by the Iranian-American Bar Association. Mark Garrison lectured on the Fortification seal impressions at the University of Michigan; Elspeth Dusinberre spoke on the seals on Aramaic tablets at the Archaeology Day of the Boulder and Denver societies of the Archaeological Institute of America.

The situation of the PFA also attracts continuing journalistic attention. An article by Gwenda Blair in the December 2008 issue of Chicago Magazine describes the progress and current status of the lawsuit (Paying with the Past). N. Beintema interviewed Wouter Henkelman on the circumstances of the Archive and the Project for the science and research section of the leading Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. The article by Marlene Belilos in the French online journal Rue89 connected the circumstances of the PFA with the legal travails of recent museum exhibitions (Indemniser les victimes d'attentats en vendant de l'art?). Sharon Cohen’s article for the Associated Press was widely published (for example, in the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Enquirer, the San Francisco Examiner, and Le Nouvel Observateur; see FOCUS: Terrorism impacting archaeology), as was a release prepared by the University News Office (Ancient Persian Archive Digitized with Support of Mellon Foundation;
the accompanying video presentation has not gone viral on YouTube; see The Persepolis Fortification Tablets).

Most significant for the larger intellectual and cultural missions of the Oriental Institute is the note by Sebastian Heath and Glenn Schwartz in American Journal of Archaeology 113 (2009), discussing the PFA in the broader context of recent legal troubles affecting museum exhibitions and cultural exchanges (Legal Threats to Cultural Exchange of Archaeological Materials).
Most of this information, along with many other articles about the PFA and about Achaemenid archaeology and epigraphy, can be followed through the PFA Project’s Weblog (where readers can now sign up to receive e-mail notification of new postings). PFA Project editor Charles E. Jones (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York) reports a substantial increase over last year’s traffic: the blog has been viewed almost 20,000 times in the twelve months beginning July 1, 2008, by almost 12,500 distinct visitors, about 12,000 of whom made repeat visits. All told, the blog has been viewed more than 50,000 times since it debuted in October 2006.

This year saw the publication of the symposium on the PFA held in Paris near the beginning of the PFA Project, in 2006, where PFA Project editors discussed the early stages of research that is now bearing fruit, and other scholars discussed the broader context of the PFA (L’archive des fortifications de Persépolis: État des questions et perspectives de recherches, edited by P. Briant, W. Henkelman, and M. Stolper, Persika 12 (Paris: De Boccard, 2009); despite the title, most of the volume is in English). The year also saw the publication of Henkelman’s work on Achaemenid religion in light of the Persepolis Fortification texts, a landmark in the use of the PFA to expound complex historical phenomena, including the most up-to-date, most thorough, and most accurate description of the Archive to be found anywhere (Other Gods Who Are: Studies in Elamite-Iranian Acculturation Based on the Persepolis Fortification Texts, Achaemenid History 14 (Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 2008); see especially “Chapter 2: The Fortification Archive,” pp. 65–179). Forthcoming presentations of Project-related scholarly results include an article by Henkelman and Stolper on ethnic identity and labeling at Persepolis, a paper by Azzoni and Stolper first given at the annual meeting of the American Oriental Society on a recurrent Aramaic epigraph on the Elamite tablets, and an article by Garrison and Robert Ritner on the Egyptian-inscribed seal impressions on Fortification documents.

The greatest value of the PFA lies in its combination of integrity and complexity — integrity in that these tens of thousands of pieces were found together and fit together in meaningful ways; complexity in that the pieces take many forms bearing many kinds of information. The greatest value of the record that the PFA Project is struggling to make and distribute lies in the interconnections among the pieces, forming a structure of data and inference that grows steadily in scope, depth, and reliability. By now, most of the new data is of a familiar kind, so most of the thrills of fresh discovery are things that only real PFA nerds can appreciate — new bits of vocabulary, grammar, paleography, iconography, or new documents that fill in old gaps. Even so, as we sift the tablets and fragments, real surprises still appear from time to time. Most gratifying for me during the last year was an Elamite Fortification tablet with a text of a completely new type, though it refers clearly to known administrative procedures. Without the integrated context of the whole archive, it would have been all but incomprehensible. It records an internal investigation of some administrative activity in the years immediately before the oldest preserved texts of the Archive. It reminds us that although the structure of interconnected information that we are building looks static, like the mounted skeleton of an extinct creature, the ancient reality that it represents was dynamic. When it was a living archive, it changed constantly as information moved through the system, and the people who compiled and filed these records also consulted them, used them to investigate and assess their own circumstances.

————————————————————

This Annual Report is republished here with the kind permission of the Oriental Institute Membership Office. The Oriental Institute Annual Reports are
available for members as one of the privileges of membership. They are
not for sale to the general public. They contain yearly summaries of the
activities of the Institute’s faculty, staff, and research projects, as
well as descriptions of special events and other Institute functions.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Matthew Stolper, Head of the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project, kicked off the event by discussing the languages of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, as a symbol of inclusiveness of the empire of many people and many languages

New Light on Persepolis: The Glyptic Imagery from thePersepolis Fortification and Treasury Archives

1. Seals and Archives at Persepolis: An Introduction2. Glyptic Imagery as Social Identity: The Seals of Ziššawiš3. The Religious Landscape at Persepolis: New Glyptic Evidencefor the So-Called "Fire Altars"4. Glyptic Imagery and Ideology: The Emergence of a VisualLanguage of Empire at Persepolis

Thursday, October 08, 2009

The PFAP '09 Event to raise awareness and funds for the Persepolis/Parsa Fortification Archive Project [PFAP] at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago on October 11th, 2009, is only a week away:

Saturday, October 03, 2009

The PFAP '09 Event to raise awareness and funds for the Persepolis/Parsa Fortification Archive Project [PFAP] at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago on October 11th, 2009, is only a week away:

Planning is underway to create and post an educational video on YouTube, Google Video, etc., suitable for K-12 level audience,therefore we graciously limit the attendance of PFAP ‘09 event to 18+ age group.

Speakers

Matthew W. StolperHead of Persepolis Fortification Archive Projectthe Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago

Since 1936, scholars at the Oriental Institute have been studying tens of thousands of tablets excavated at Persepolis, the complex of palaces that Kings Darius and Xerxes built in the heartland of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Their results have transformed modern understanding of the languages, art, society, and institutions of the Persian Empire. But, since 2004, they have been working under a cloud of litigation that threatens the future of these tablets. This presentation discusses what the Persepolis Fortification Archive is, why it is important, and how the PFA Project is using digital tools and methods to record and publish it.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Iran's Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia (CGIE) has published Persian translations of a number of Persepolis petroglyphs.

The inscriptions have been translated by Iranian linguist and inscriptions expert Abdolmajid Arfaei and published in a book titled Translations of Persepolis Walls.

In an interview with ISNA News Agency, Arfaei said that the book contains 164 texts translated between 1998 and 2003.

“The original texts belong to Iran's National Museum and there might still be some inscriptions which have not been translated,” Arfaei said.

“The book includes Persian and English introductions as well as a Persian grammar section,” he added, saying that the English preface contains information on the original location of the inscriptions and the people who used them during the Achaemenid era.

Arfaei who is an Elamite language expert and the founder of the Inscriptions Hall of Iran's National Museum has also translated over 2,500 Persepolis inscriptions, which are housed at the University of Chicago.

His Decree of Cyrus the Great is a detailed account of the inscriptions on the Cyrus Cylinder, considered to be the world's first charter of human rights.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Right now, the Senate is considering legislation that would prevent attempts to confiscate and auction off some of the most powerful symbols of Persian civilization. This legislation is designed to protect the priceless artifacts from Takht-e-Jamshid and all the other Persian artifacts under attack.

A group of lawyers wants to seize these relics of our heritage and auction them off to the highest bidder like cheap items sold on e-bay. "Maybe they'll end up on coffee tables around the country," one lawyer for the plaintiffs mused.

These books appear in the context of the Bibliotheque numerique des ouvrages publiés par l'Institut des Sciences et Techniques de l'Antiquité. A full listing of the offerings of that digital collection is here.

Monday, July 06, 2009

This series of notes and articles summarises the results of the rescue excavations (2005-2007) conducted at the occasion of the construction of a dam in the Bolaghi valley, which opens about 2km south of the tomb of Cyrus at Pasargadae. Only the results pertaining to the Achaemenid and Post-Achaemenid periods are presented here: full excavation reports will be published in separate volumes edited by the respective joint missions between Iran and Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and Poland.

Legal action on behalf of victims of terrorism has attempted to force the sale of cultural artifacts on loan to U.S. institutions in order to compensate those victims. Such action jeopardizes the participation of American institutions in international cultural exchanges. The authors maintain that archaeological artifacts should not be sold to satisfy a court judgment, regardless of the actions of a particular regime, and that it should be possible for nations to share their cultural heritage without fear of loss.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

USC’s first pilgrims to a temple of high-energy physics will be seeking answers to worldly questions about ancient commerce.

Archaeologist Lynn Swartz Dodd of USC College and her students are taking trade artifacts from Egypt to the Argonne National Laboratory’s Advanced Photon Source, home of the most powerful X-rays in the country...

The group hopes to return to Argonne this fall or next spring for a second round of studies, this time to analyze Assyrian and Persian artifacts found in Israel, Turkey, Iraq and Iran, which are on loan from the Oriental Institute of Chicago...

This is not the first time that USC has brought modern technology to bear on ancient problems. Dodd’s colleague Bruce Zuckerman leads a team that has been creating digital images of the ancient writings on the Persepolis Tablets at the Oriental Institute in Chicago.

The project has two goals: to preserve at least digital access to the Iranian government-owned tablets, which may be sold off as part of a lawsuit seeking to punish Iran for its ties to the terrorist group Hamas; and to reduce physical study of the tablets by scholars.

“Looking at a text is probably the most damaging thing you can do to it,” Zuckerman said.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Washington, DC - Iranian-Americans from the New York tri-state area exceeded NIAC’s fundraising goals and helped raise over $110,000 to go towards preserving the Persepolis Artifacts on May 30th at the Asia Society in Manhattan...

Special guest, Professor Matthew Stolper who has dedicated his career to studying these tablets, made the gravity of losing just one of these artifacts crystal clear - If there are too many of these tablets being auctioned, their value will drop. So what do people do to ensure that the price remains high? "They destroy a good number of them," he exclaimed to a shocked audience. He also stressed the importance of keeping these items together, in fact, they are really to be seen as one item. Like a dinosaur fossil - if one bone is missing, we lose a sense of what the animal was. The same goes for these artifacts which tell the story of the Persian empire during the time of Darius the Great.

Thanks to our community in the City that Never Sleeps, NIAC is better positioned to ensure that not a single tablet from Persepolis is confiscated, auctioned or destroyed. NIAC is involved through legal, media and policy avenues to preserve the Persepolis tablets

A federal court in Massachusetts affirmed on 31 March that Iranian antiquities at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Harvard University Art Museums might be subject to a claim by the victims of a terrorist bombing allegedly sponsored by Iran...

In the latest round of litigation in Massachusetts, the court declined to reconsider its prior ruling that the plaintiffs might be able to claim the antiquities under the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002. The case will now go to the federal appeals court.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

I've made a small change to the blog recently. If you're reading this in a feed reader or by email you may not it, so if that's the case, click the through to the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project blog.

In the righthand side bar is a form allowing you to receive notifications of updates to AWOL by email. This seems useful for those for whom news feeds are not. Your address will be safe. Neither we nor feedburner will send you spam. I have been testing it and I'm satisfied that it works reliably.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

They say Alexander III [336-323 BCE], the Macedonian King who had defeated Dâriuš III [336-330 BCE], the Achaemenid Great King, in 3 pitched battles and savagely burned Pârsâ [Persepolis] to ashes, admired Great Kuruš [Cyrus II, the Great, 559-530 BCE] - the first Great King who had brought most of the known world under the sway of the Persians over 200 years earlier...

Second Isaiah's prophecy that the divine action to release the Judean exilic community in Babylon from bondage was to be through the human hands of the 'Persian Cyrus' must have come as a surprise to Judeans.

This 'Cyrus', the mythic figure of the Holy Bible, was no other than the historical King Kuruš II [559-530 BCE], namesake of his grandfather, King Kuruš I. Kuruš was given the epithet of 'Great' by the Romans of the Roman Empire centuries later and became known throughout the history of the world as the Latinized 'Cyrus the Great'...

A. J. Cave is an Iranian-American writer based in California, USA and a member of Stanford University's World Association of International Studies (WAIS). She is currently working on her second historical novel Cyrus Romance: Kuruš Nâmeh. Information about her first historical novel Roxana Romance: Rošanak Nâmeh is available at www.pavasta.com.

In late April–early May 2004, I had the privilege of helping to work toward the fulfillment of a seventy-year-old promise made by the Oriental Institute to the people of Iran by returning 300 clay tablets from the larger body of Persepolis Fortification Tablets that had been on long-term loan to the Oriental Institute for study and publication. The texts on these tablets have extraordinary importance for our understanding of the Persian empire and ancient Iran...

Monday, May 04, 2009

Since January, 2007, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has supported a collaboration between the West Semitic Research Project (WSRP), at the University of Southern California and the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project, making two kinds of very high-quality images of Persepolis Fortification tablets and distributing the images on line. Bruce Zuckerman and his WSRP team brought to the collaboration more than thirty years of experience with high-quality imaging of West Semitic documents and inscriptions, using conventional and digital techniques. WSRP has been distributing images since 2001 via the robust, easy-to-use application InscriptiFact. More than 8,700 images of more than 300 Fortification tablets will soon be available through InscriptiFact, and more will be displayed at frequent intervals. The following announcement and video clip describe some of the work under way at the Oriental Institute. The PFA Project expects to issue another announcement soon, focusing on the work WSRP-PFA/OI collaboration.

The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago is using modern technology to digitally record thousands of tablets that, as they are being pieced together, tell an unusually detailed story of the Persian Empire.

These ancient tablets from the palaces of Persepolis include pieces of language and art from the center of the Persian Empire, all made when it extended from India and Central Asia to Egypt and the Mediterranean. Most have texts in impressed cuneiform characters, many them have inked texts in Aramaic writing and almost all of the tablets have seal impressions. They are now being recorded and distributed with digital processes that will allow scholars and viewers across the world to examine them as if they had picked them up and rotated under a light.

With a substantial grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a team of researchers began work in 2007. Now, with a second Mellon grant, the team will continue this work through 2010. By that time researchers hope to have about 10,000 tablets and fragments recorded.

Gil Stein, Director of the Oriental Institute, where the tablets are kept, is principal investigator along with Matthew Stolper, John A. Wilson Professor in the Oriental Institute. Other team members and co-principal investigators are Annalisa Azzoni at Vanderbilt University, Elspeth Dusinberre at the University of Colorado, Mark Garrison at Trinity University, Wouter Henkelman at the Free University of Amsterdam, and Bruce Zuckerman and members of the West Semitic Research Project at the University of Southern California. The team collaborates in person, but also electronically.

The tablets being digitized come from the Persepolis Fortification Archive, some 30,000 administrative tablets and fragments that Oriental Institute archaeologists recovered in 1933 at Persepolis, the ruined palaces where the kings of the ancient Persian Empire held court. Since 1936 they have been on loan from Iran to the Oriental Institute for analysis and recording.

“They were written, sealed and filed in a short span of time, between 509 and 493 B.C., in the middle of the reign of the Achaemenid Persian king Darius I,” Stein said. “The oldest Greek tragedy of Aeschylus, and the first Greek history of Herodotus tell us about the reign of Darius, but they don’t tell us anything like this. The administration that these documents record touched every level of society, from lowly workers through bureaucrats and governors to the royal family itself,” he said.

Part of the collection has been recorded, and many of the tablets have been returned to Iran, but the tablets have challenged scholars since their discovery. Only one other document of its kind had been found before the discovery of the archive, making the comparison, reading and understanding of the archive’s tens of thousands of pieces difficult.

Matthew Stolper, Professor at the Oriental Institute, examines a tablet on loan from the government of Iran that has been digitized.

“It is no exaggeration to say that this knowledge has transformed every aspect of modern study of the languages, history and society, institutions and art of the Achaemenid Persian Empire,” Stolper said. “No serious treatment of the Achaemenid Empire can any longer omit the perspectives provided by the Fortification Archive.”

As the project continues, scholars will be able to better analyze the information available in the archive. Online presentation of images of the tablets, images of the seal impressions and editions of the texts will allow researchers to be able to look at each piece, compare and connect it with other pieces, and to assemble and work with the archive as a whole system.

How the recording works

The phase of the project supported by the Mellon grants is a close collaboration between the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago and the West Semitic Research Project at the University of Southern California. This phase captures and distributes two kinds of high-quality images of Persepolis Fortification tablets.

One set of images is made with a high-resolution, large-format scanning camera with polarized and filtered lighting. The lighting compensates for some of the staining, glare and fading that problematic in seeing inked texts.

The second set of images is captured with Polynomial Texture Mapping (PTM) apparatuses, using a technology developed by Hewlett Packard Labs and Cultural Heritage Imaging. Only a dozen or so of these apparatuses exist, and two of them are recording Persepolis tablets in the basement of the Oriental Institute. A computer controls the camera in each device, making a set of 32 distinctly lighted views of each document. Each image set is combined by a software application in such a way that viewers can control the apparent direction, angle and intensity of the light falling on the object, using a computer mouse just as if they were handling the original object under a desk lamp.

High-resolution images of about 200 Persepolis Fortification texts are available on InscriptiFact, on the Web site of the West Semitic Research Project. Several hundred more will be available soon. Images of about 150 more Persepolis tablets, along with editions, and analytical tools, will soon be released on the On-Line Cultural Research Environment (OCHRE), the archaeological and textual database and presentation application developed at the Oriental Institute and maintained by the University of Chicago Library.

"Ask President Obama to prevent the auction of priceless Persepolis artifacts

At a time of hope when President Barack Obama has commended our heritage, saying "The Iranian people are a great people, and Persian civilization is a great civilization," a court in Chicago is about to confiscate and auction off some of the most powerful symbols of this civilization: priceless artifacts from Takht-e-Jamshid.

By failing to gain reparations from the Iranian government, lawyers for victims of terrorist attacks in Israel are now in turn attacking the heritage of Iranian Americans.

This must be stopped. Ask President Obama to prevent the auction of our cultural heritage!

The artifacts from Persepolis are part of our heritage and identity. While far too few people know of the glories of our Iranian heritage, even fewer will have a chance to discover our history if these artifacts are taken from the museums and sold to the highest bidder on e-bay.By sending a letter to President Obama, you are not only saving Iranian-American history and culture, but you are preserving it for your children's education and pride as well.

Not surprisingly, the thought of putting a price tag on 2,500 years of history has caused outrage world-wide. A European group of scholars has already collected hundreds of signatures in their petition to President Obama. Even the Department of Justice has recognized that this case has crossed the line.

By enlisting the help of a major law firm, NIAC has created an avenue to make your voice heard. Mayer Brown LLP is in the process of submitting an amicus brief on behalf of NIAC and the Iranian-American community. But we need your help!

Act now to stop this affront to our rich Iranian heritage. Ask President Obama to intervene to prevent our history and symbols of our identity from falling into careless hands.

Take this opportunity to speak out against the looting of our Iranian culture."

On the Attachment of Cultural Objects to Compensate Victims of Terrorism

Statement

The Archaeological Institute of America believes that loans of cultural objects from foreign nations to U.S. cultural institutions serve the best interests of the people of the United States. We are concerned that legal actions and the threat of legal action on behalf of victims of terrorism now jeopardize the participation of American institutions in international cultural exchanges. These legal actions seek to force the sale of cultural artifacts on loan to or in U.S. institutions to satisfy court judgments obtained by these victims. The AIA strongly condemns all acts of international terrorism and supports efforts by victims of terrorism to obtain compensation. However, we believe that archaeological artifacts should not be sold to satisfy a court judgment, regardless of the actions of a particular regime, and that it should be possible for nations to share their cultural heritage without fear of loss.

In light of our concern that archaeological and other cultural objects should be part of cultural exchanges that benefit the American public, the Archaeological Institute of America calls on the U.S. Congress to enact new legislation to ensure that such cultural exchanges can take place. This legislation should prevent the sale of cultural objects to compensate those who have obtained court judgments under anti-terrorism provisions of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and would apply to cultural objects on loan from other nations to U.S. nonprofit institutions as part of public exhibitions that have a cultural and educational purpose.

Background

In 1996, the U.S. Congress amended the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), narrowing the traditional immunity that had been granted to foreign sovereigns and allowing individual victims of terrorist acts to sue those countries that the United States has listed as state sponsors of terrorism. In January 2008, the Congress amended the FSIA, in order to facilitate recovery of judgments that had been awarded to terrorism victims. Both before and after the 2008 amendments were enacted, cultural artifacts on loan to or present in U.S. institutions were under threat.

A group of plaintiffs, who were the victims of a Hamas bombing in Jerusalem, won a judgment against Iran, which defaulted in the proceedings. Having difficulty locating Iranian assets in the United States, in 2004 this group sued the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Harvard University, the University of Michigan and the Detroit Institute of Art under both the FSIA and the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. The plaintiffs sought to attach (that is, obtain for purpose of sale to satisfy a judgment) two collections of cuneiform tablets (the Persepolis Fortification Tablets and the Choga Mish tablets) that had been on loan to the Oriental Institute from Iran since the 1930s and the 1960s, respectively. The plaintiffs are also seeking to attach additional artifacts in the collections of these institutions, alleging that the artifacts are stolen property and therefore belong to Iran. While this litigation was ongoing, a second group of plaintiffs, the relatives of U.S. Marines killed in the Beirut barracks bombing, who had also won a default judgment against Iran, intervened in the attachment proceedings and are now also claiming a right to the monetary value of the artifacts.

In fall 2008, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York was organizing its major exhibition “Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C.,” Syria gave the museum permission to borrow 55 objects. Under the Immunity from Seizure Act, the U.S. State Department can grant immunity from seizure to objects brought into the U.S. on temporary loan for exhibition purposes. However, when the Metropolitan Museum requested immunity for the objects to be loaned by Syria, there was concern that, in light of the 2008 amendments, even a State Department grant of immunity might not protect the objects from attachment by individuals who have claims against Syria for supporting terrorist activity. According to a statement by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was therefore not possible for these objects to be part of the exhibit.

The ability of nations and institutions throughout the world to loan objects is crucial to achieving international cultural exchange and increasing understanding of different places, different times, and different people. Such archaeological artifacts should not be sold to satisfy claims that are unrelated to the objects themselves. While the earlier litigation related to Iran had already indicated some threat to cultural interchanges, the Metropolitan’s inability to borrow objects from Syria for an exhibition indicates the danger this legislation and litigation pose to cultural exchange. American citizens have been deprived of the opportunity of appreciating and learning from archaeological artifacts and works of art from one of the world’s oldest civilizations. The actions in question therefore pose a serious threat to cultural exchange and cultural diplomacy, which are extremely important in building understanding among peoples.

If the United States is in the practice of confiscating artifacts that belong to other nations, then other nations will be unlikely to lend objects to U.S. cultural institutions. In addition, the U.S. will make itself vulnerable to the confiscation of its own cultural objects on loan in foreign nations. In the suit against the Oriental Institute, the Justice Department has, in fact, recommended against attachment of the tablets, presumably in part because of the bad precedent it would set for U.S. interests elsewhere. We call on Congress to enact legislation to preserve the principle that cultural heritage should be made available for public viewing and cultural exchange in the interest of promoting greater understanding of our shared past.